With IM Buddies Like These, Who Needs Frienemies?

The other morning, I walked into the office to find a slew of instant messaging buddy requests from total strangers. This isn’t unexpected: I frequently get buddy requests on IM accounts I maintain for research purposes that contain malicious URLs and other useful research data. But this was one request I wasn’t expecting.

The inquiry, written in both English and Russian, was simply an advertisement for “Organization of DDOS attacks” from an ICQ account that has not been used since the friend request came in. The somewhat perplexing offer claims the service offers “support online 24/7/365″ (finally, a DDOS service that works weekends and holidays, unlike those slacker DDOSers who only work during banker’s hours) and asks “You hurt? We got competition?”

Who’s this we you’re referring to, mister criminal mastermind?

The solicitation for business included a different ICQ user ID number than the one used to send the buddy request, as well as an email address. I’ve seen some strange solicitations for various kinds of business delivered this way, but never one so brazen over an ostensibly illegal (both in Russia and elsewhere) service.

It’s too bad I can’t tell the guy to just go DDOS himself, but the accounts used in the ad have all been shut down.